Village shopkeeper bombarded with hate mail over golliwog sales

A woman who runs a village shop dedicated to Enid Blyton has received hate mail after she started selling golliwogs.

Viv Endecott has sold more than 500 golliwogs in the last six months from her shop in Corfe Castle, DorsetPhoto: BNPS

By Nick Britten

12:33PM GMT 30 Oct 2008

Viv Endecott has called in the police after receiving a string of complaints from locals.

But she has hit back by sticking up an anonymous letter put under her door in the shop window to gauge customers' reaction.

Miss Endecott, 47, has sold more than 500 golliwogs in the last six months and claims there is a demand for them.

Enid Blyton regularly featured them in her famous books, including the Noddy series.

In recent years the golliwogs have been "cleansed" from the novels as many people began to see them as a crude racial stereotype.

But Miss Endecott said she will continue to sell the dolls alongside the Blyton books, teddy bears and bottles of ginger beer.

She said: "Around here it is accepted that a golliwog is a soft toy associated with Enid Blyton. I genuinely think most people don't associate them with black people.

"No offence has ever been intended by me and therefore none should be taken.

"My customers aren't members of the BNP or the National Front. They don't cuddle golliwogs and turn into racist bigots, who we all detest."

Miss Endecott, who is of Indian origin, added: "There is plenty of real racism to get worked up about than to argue over the merits of a soft toy."

The golliwog first appeared in a children's story by the writer Florence Kate Upton and was popularised in Britain when jam manufacturer Robertsons adopted it as a symbol for its products in 1910. They dropped it in 2001.

In Blyton's Noddy books, the golliwog owner of the garage in Toytown has been replaced by a Mr Sparks while the book The Three Golliwogs is now The Three Bold Pixies.

Pauline Burnett-Dick, 52, who bought a golliwog from the shop in Corfe Castle, Dorset, which was immortalised in the Famous Five novels, said: "They are part of my childhood and it ridiculous

it is being suggested they shouldn't be sold anymore."

Adnan Chaudry, chief officer of the Dorset Race Equality Council, said: "Golliwogs have become widely recognised as an offensive object by all sections of the modern world."